Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction by William H. Capitan (review)

$40 BOOK REVIEWS but analogy as strict attribution and not as proportionality. Only the former makes it impossible to conceive of God as the creaturely perfection simply denuded of its conditions of finiteness; only attribution leaves God as Unknown who can be " designated " from the contents of a finite concept as a "point de depart." One other Appendix (no. Ill) , though somewhat extraneous to the central theme of the book, deserves mention. It deals with an ecumenical effort on the part of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant theologians at Chevetogne in 1953 to deal with the problem of the openness of nature to grace. Noteworthy is the observation, worth pursuing perhaps, concerning the surprising parallelism between the positions of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Gregory Palladas. The correspondence is covert, hidden beneath an obvious but superficial divergence in conceptual system and language. Lending credence to this view is the information that Fr. Mascall gleans from the two books of J. Meyerdorff that Gregory's adversary, Barlaam, was a professed Nominalist in full flight from Thomistic Realism. The degree to which the tradition of the Eastern Fathers survives in Aquinas's work on grace is too often obscured by a one-sided emphasis on the created dimension to the grace-state. What these Gifford Lectures offer us in the end is a rather refreshing perspective on man's natural capacities of God, refreshing not least of all because they refuse to neglect or obscure the implications in the preKantian conviction of the objectivity and veracity of man's involvement in the world. Fr. Mascall's own staunch position comes through with clarity and force: that unless natural theology is possible, revealed theology is impossible too. This does not eliminate the conviction that present society is, in John MacQuarrie's words, "experiencing a dark night of the soul" wherein God holds himself at a remove and absent from the world. But it is at least a flickering candle in that dark. Ths Catholic University of America Washington, D. C. WILLIAM J. HILL, o. P. Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction. By WILLIAM H. CAPITAN. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1972. Pp. 201. Intended for " students and general readers,'' Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction, by Professor Wililam H. Capitan, is a serious and sympathetic discussion of religion. The method Capitan employs is one of descriptive analysis; for each of the several topics considered, he presents in historical sequence and in summary form arguments and counter-argu- BOOK REVIEWS 541 ments of authorities who represent classical and contemporary viewpoints. His choice of this method derives from a desire to " give the reader an understanding of the richness of the field." Hence, what may be lacking at times in depth of analysis is compensated for by heuristic possibilities and an inducement to pursue further a greater range of philosophical perspectives and problems connected with religion. Every book is the product of selection. Since there are more philosophical problems concerning religion than one can possibly cover adequately , Capitan brings his subject under manageable form by concentrating on the dominant religious tradition of our Western culture, theism, in particular Judaeo-Christian theism. When one considers the limitation necessarily imposed upon an introduction to the field, Capitan makes a generous selection of central issues to be considered, such as the teleological argument for the existence of God, the problem of evil, revelation, miracle, immortality, faith and belief, religious exerience, and religious language. The author's approach is to plunge "in media res, without a great deal of preliminary definition," but there is considerable doubt as to whether this is "the best way to initiate" the student and general reader. It is to be seriously doubted that this is the best way to approach a field which is notorious for confusion on a practical level (witness compilations of bibliographies and course descriptions for philosophy of religion) and for uncertainty as to its nature and scope on the theoretical level. True, " a battery of definitions in vacuo " is to be eschewed. But, particularly in an introduction to the subject, an ordered approach by way of descriptive definition emerging from analysis is to be desired-if for no better reason than to...